In addition to the Dallas World Aquarium, I visited the Perot Museum of Nature and Science during the course of SVP. The museum had made admission free for SVP attendees while the conference was going on, which was a treat.

Being accustomed to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History, the Perot Museum's exhibit halls appeared much smaller in comparison. However, size does not translate to quality, and the Perot made good use of its space. On top of that, it is very architecturally interesting.

The museum takes visitors straight to the top floor and has them work their way down. As additional enticement, the top floor is where the dinosaurs are. The centerpiece of the fossil hall is a Tyrannosaurus pursuing an Alamosaurus. (There is also a mounted mountain lion and a deer as a modern example of a large-bodied predator-prey duo.)

The sign says Hypsilophodon, but this dinosaur will probably get its own genus.

Tenontosaurus, without a Deinonychus in sight!

They had a nice series of mosasaur mounts, including this Tylosaurus.

In museums, Archelon and other large turtles can fly.

To represent the North American-Asian biotic interchanges in the Cretaceous, we have the skull of Tarbosaurus...

... and the skull of Gorgosaurus.

The skull of Protohadros.

So that's the way they're swinging. Hmm.

The giant beaver Castoroides.

Adult Edmontosaurus and juvenile Ugrunaaluk.

Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum, whose trivial nomen shares the same namesake family as the museum.

Skulls of Torosaurus and Styracosaurus.

A flight of stairs leads to the museum's bird exhibits, which was nicely symbolic. They open with a display on avian evolution. There'sDeinonychus!

Here's Archaeopteryx.

A life restoration of... Flexomornis? Interesting choice considering it is known only from fragmentary limb bones, but it all falls into place when one remembers that it was discovered in Texas. I don't buy the beak or the foldable tail fan.

Hesperornis, among few marine dinosaurs of the Mesozoic.

Representing modern birds is a pelican.

I like how the alternative phylogenetic positions for Archaeopteryx are shown here. It hasn't turned up as a non-avialan in a while, but it was presumably still a hot topic when these exhibits were made.

Though we didn't have time to explore the rest of the museum for long, getting to see the fossils was enough to satisfy me for the time being. On the whole, I had a great time in Dallas!

Monday, October 26, 2015

While in Dallas for SVP, I took the chance to visit some nearby attractions. I was accompanied by my friends Ben Giraldo and Mustafa Malik, the latter of whom I'd met in person for the first time. One of places we went to was the Dallas World Aquarium. It does not look spectacularly large on the outside (it takes up a single block on its own, and not a particularly large one), but, on the inside, it is quickly revealed that it makes very efficient use of its space, though not always in ethically sound ways.

Visitors can view a series of aviaries even before they reach the ticket booth. This one contains some red-tailed black cockatoos.

A Pesquet's parrot. It is easy to see how it received its alternate common name of vulturine parrot.

Past the ticket booth, there is an exhibit for a Matschie's tree-kangaroo.

A shoebill.

The main display area starts as one goes up a flight of stairs. Even though this institution is nominally an aquarium, most of the exhibits are not strictly aquatic-themed. Its biggest and probably most impressive display is an immersive exhibit simulating a tropical South American rainforest. A variety of birds are free to roam here and a few other animals have at least the illusion of such freedom. There are also smaller, enclosed displays set along the path throughout.

One of these enclosed displays contained a number of small birds. This blue-naped chlorophonia aptly demonstrates why the display is known as "Jungle Jewels".

I neglected to take a picture of the sign for this one, but I think it is a swallow tanager. I wasn't a fan of the touchscreen signs they had at this aquarium. In my experience, the average visitor ignores typical signs frequently enough as they are, let alone signs that require you to click through multiple menus to find what you are looking at. Even I couldn't be bothered at times to read the exhibit signs here, which is saying something.

Some golden-headed manakins.

A helmeted curassow with its striking casque.

Sharing its enclosure were two giant anteaters (only one visible in this photo) and many other bird species. This exhibit was extremely tall (making it difficult for visitors to see most of the birds), but the ground space looked far too small for the anteaters. Sadly, this is a recurring problem with this aquarium.

Some white-faced sakis. They are confined to an island in the midst of the immersive habitat, but the tall trees and dense foliage probably make up for limited horizontal space.

On the flip side, some pied tamarins were kept in a glass-fronted display that didn't appear to provide much room for them. Though they are small, they are also very active, and would almost certainly appreciate more opportunities to burn off their high energy.

Below them was a (small-looking, yet again) pond for giant otters, the first ones I've ever seen in life. (In typical otter fashion, they were too active to photograph easily.) Despite its flaws, the Dallas World Aquarium is arguably worth a visit for the impressive number of rarely-seen species it has.

A curl-crested aracari. There are likely more toucan species housed here than anywhere else I've been to.

A pygmy marmoset in much the same situation as the pied tamarins.

A three-toed sloth! Another first for me, as two-toed sloths are much more common in captivity.

The descending pathway leads to an underwater view of the lake surrounding the monkey island visible from earlier in the tour. This tank houses many Amazonian fish and a West Indian manatee.

The rainforest gives way to the part of the aquarium that actually focuses on aquariums. Ultimately a minor part of the facility in terms of space, but not without gems like this mandarinfish.

There were your "standard" leafy seadragons and weedy seadragons, but I had never seen ribboned pipefish before then. Their seaweed-mimicking appendages are probably convergent with those of the better-known seaweed-mimicking pipefish. (Yes, seadragons are pipefish, not seahorses!)

A sea cucumber. I frequently see this species in pictures, but its name escapes me.

A small outdoor detour took us to a series of displays with African animals, including some black-footed penguins. Penguins are wonderful, but I was more taken by this white-crested turaco.

The last third of the aquarium was devoted to Mesoamerican animals and their roles in Mayan culture. This part starts off with a series of terrarium-style exhibits before making way for another immersive rainforest display, though it is smaller than the one that came before.

Some Mexican beaded lizards. They were being fed while they were there, hence why one of them has a baby mouse in its mouth. Prior to the discovery that the presence of venom is widespread in squamates, beaded lizards and the Gila monster were widely said to be the only venomous lizards (naturally, excluding snakes in those pre-phylogenetic-nomenclature days). Behind them were some rattlesnakes (which I didn't get pictures of), separated by glass but giving off the illusion of sharing the same exhibit.

A Morelet's crocodile.

A jaguar playing with a log. Although there is an outdoors portion of its enclosure (only visible to visitors through a video camera), this exhibit still suffers from limited space.